Sandy Larch was squatted on the sand, against the wall of his shack,
lacing a new leather into the cincha-ring of his saddle, and singing The
Tune The Old Cow Died On. The ditty was one of his favorites, but his
soul was not in it this morning and he sang as mechanically as his
fingers moved about their familiar task. It was the morning after Gard’s
loss of the packet, and he had been out at daybreak, going over every
foot of the breaking-ground, but he could find no trace of it.
“Gosh! I’m sorry,” he muttered, testing the new strap. “I hate to see
Gard look like he did fer a spell yesterday. If I had any idee Westcott
had that thing, whatever it was, I’d choke it out’n him, fer a punched
two-bit-piece.”
He turned the saddle over to investigate the other strap, taking up the
burden of his song again:
[Illustration: “And this is the tune fi roll doll dey Do, sung that af-
ter- noon!”]
He rolled out the chorus at the top of his lungs, as he cut loose the
cincha-thongs, and had carried the next verse to
[Illustration: “The farm- er had an in- quest held To see what ailed h i
s—cow—”]
When a shadow fell upon the sand before him, and he looked up to see
Wing Chang.
“Well, my Chinee friend,” he said, “Why don’t you join in? Can’t you
sing?”
“No can.” The cook shook his head; then the wrinkles about his slant
eyes deepened, ran downward, and met, midway of his chops, the upward
ones that started around his grinning mouth.
“Allee samee you?” He questioned, slyly.
“Allee samee me what?” demanded Sandy, suspiciously.
“Sing. You catchee him?”
“Do I sing, are you askin’?” roared the foreman. “Why you yaller
heathen! Ain’t you just bin hearin’ me sing?”
Wing Chang’s grin intensified, and gradually Sandy’s own visage widened
genially.
“Take your rise,” he said, “you sure got it out’n me then.... Look a’
here,” he added, “What you hangin’ round here stealin’ music lessons
fer? Where you bin, anyway?”
“Bin talkee Bloome,” Chang said. “Him wantee coffee.”
“Broome! What in hell’s Broome doin’ round here this time o’ day?”
The sly look deepened in Chang’s face. His slant eyes narrowed, and lost
their humorous twinkle.
“Say him sick,” he explained. “Think mebby Mistlee Westclott come
bimeby.”
“Not this time, my wise Chink. Westcott’s homeward bound for Tucson just
about now.”
“Whafor Mistlee Glad go away?” Wing Chang asked, ignoring the other’s
statement.
“I d’ know, Chang.” The foreman whistled a few notes, meditatively. The
Chinaman drew nearer.
“Whafor Bloome an’ Mistlee Westclott hatee him so?”
Sandy regarded him severely.
“See here, now, Chang,” he bluffed, “You think I’m a animated
booktionary work, guaranteeded to fit all your ‘whatfors’ with ‘is
whats’? Not on your life. Ain’t I told you your job ’s cookin’? You
don’t have to break out no question-marks on this here rancho. Sabbee
dat?”
Wing Chang returned his intent look without winking.
“Him two allee samee hatee Mistlee Glad,” he repeated. “Speakee ’bout
him allee timee, behind corral. Allee timee say ‘dlamn’, an’ spit, so.”
He illustrated on the desert.
“Heap you know,” the foreman said, still more severely: “you think
you’re a blanked Pinkerton detective, don’t you? Well you ain’t. Your
job ’s beans, an’ bull meat. You go makee him.”
He waved a hand in the direction of Chang’s official quarters, and the
Chinaman’s perennial grin returned.
“Allee lightee,” he said, “Then you keep look see out on Mistlee
Westclott. Bimeby, he try do Mistlee Glad dirt, I makee my bull meat off
him.”
He walked off, his hands in his sleeves, and Sandy Larch looked after
him thoughtfully.
“Now I wonder what that Chink thinks he knows,” he mused. “Chang ain’t
no fool. He’s _hip_ to somethin’. ’T ain’t good discipline to ask
questions off’n a Chink; but I sure wish I could see into his shiny
skull.”
He picked up the saddle and took it into the shack, returning, after a
moment, to stand in the door, humming—
[Illustration: “But the cow was mad, and she tried to sing .... Thunder
an’ punkins!”]
He did not realize his variation on the ordinary version of his song. He
had brought his warbling to a sudden finish, and stood peering out at a
horseman who was riding along the edge of the farthest corral.
After a second he stepped back into the shanty, and watched through the
crack of the half-open door.
“Sure’s shootin’,” he muttered, “The Chink was right. It _is_ Westcott.”
His ear caught a low whistle that was presently answered from quarters.
Sandy remembered that he, himself, was supposed to be at the upper
range. He would have been on his way there but for the defect in his
cincha-strap. He stopped to consider, wondering whether he had been
singing loud enough for Broome to hear him.
“That’s what comes o’ tryin’ to be a _prima donna_,” he muttered. “But
any way I bin still long enough to make him think I’m gone, if he did
hear.”
He stepped out upon the sand.
“They’s something sure goin’ on out yonder,” he said, “Sandy Larch,
you’re managing this here shebang while the _patron_’s away; why ain’t
you eligible to a box-seat?”
A long row of outhouses and ranch buildings stretched out from the
foreman’s shack to the men’s quarters, and still beyond these were two
fodder-sheds. The last of these was about half full of hay. It stood at
the very edge of the farther corral, and Sandy noted that Westcott had
ridden up into its shade.
The foreman slipped off his jangling spurs, and keeping well in the
shadow of the buildings, made his way to this shed. He went with
wonderful lightness and quickness for so big a man, and was presently
creeping among the hay bales.
Outside, Westcott sat his horse, while Broome leaned against the wall.
Guided by the sound of their voices, Sandy worked his way along, close
to the boards, until he was directly opposite them.
“What makes you think you know where the burro is?” Westcott was saying
as Sandy came within hearing.
“That’s _my_ think,” was the sulky reply. “I ain’t no way bound to tell
you it, special as you say you don’t care about sittin’ in the game.”
“Oh, I didn’t really say that!” There was a curious ring of exultation
in Westcott’s voice.
“I only said,” he resumed, “that I had my own ways of finding out
things. I have; and I dare say I could put my hands on your burro, if I
needed it in my business.”
“A heap you could,” Broome sneered. “Mebby you think you kin put your
hands on Gard, too, if you need ’im in your bizness. Well, mebby you
kin; an’ mebby you wouldn’t git smashed if you tried it.”
“Put my hands on him—” The lawyer’s voice was thick with emotion. “I’ve
got the blasted fool between my thumb and finger now,” he said, “When I
get ready, I can smash him like _that_!”
Sandy Larch heard the speaker’s two palms come together.
“Not while Sandy Larch is ’round, my fine liar-at-law,” he muttered
under his breath. Then he heard Broome’s incredulous grunt.
“What’s got you bug-house?” the cowboy asked, and Westcott laughed.
“Do you want to know who this fine Mister Gabriel Gard really is?” He
sneered, and the listener in the shed fairly held his breath to hear.
“Do you know? You said you didn’t.”
“I just happen to,” Westcott said, deliberately. “And I know he could no
more file on a claim, or on anything else in this land, than that little
she-ass you seem so keen to get hold of.”
“Why not?”
“Because—” Westcott’s voice was vibrant with hate.
“Because,” he repeated, “He’s a damned state-prison convict. That’s why
not!”
Inside the shed Sandy Larch’s face shone white in the gloom. Outside
there was a sound of Broome’s hard breathing. Westcott’s statement
seemed to have deprived the cowboy of speech.
“Do you remember Dan Lundy?” the lawyer said, and Sandy started.
“I never knowed ’im,” Broome replied. “He was a pal o’ Sandy Larch’s.”
“So? I didn’t know that. Then this here Gard won’t be so thick here when
Sandy knows. But he won’t be very thick anywhere, in the open, for that
matter.” Westcott laughed.
“This fellow’s the one who did the business for Lundy,” he added.
“Killed him?”
“Knifed him in his shack. He did three years for it, and then broke
jail.”
“How d’you know?”
The foreman strained his ears to listen, a look of wondering
comprehension in his face.
“That’s my business,” Westcott said. “I’ve got it down in black and
white. He came up to Blue Gulch when I was there, and Frank Arnold came
up to take him again. That was Arnold’s last job.”
“He was drowned, I remember,” Broome spoke in a hoarse whisper.
“Either that, or this fellow that calls himself Gard did for him, as he
did for Lundy. Arnold was a good man. Lord! When I think the other
fellow’s hanging around here with Larch this minute—”
“He ain’t here;” Broome said. “He went off yest’day.”
“Fury! Where to?”
“I d’ know. He rode off some time in th’ afternoon. He’d lost somethin’
when we was workin’ out them blame cows, an’ was mighty cut up, I heard.
An’ when he couldn’t find it he went off.”
“Skipped—blast it!” Westcott seemed to consider.
“I know what he lost, all right,” he went on. “Good thing for him Sandy
Larch didn’t find it. But I’ll land him all right, too ... But that
ain’t the point,” the lawyer continued. “The point is this: He can’t
hold that claim. There’s nothing to keep us from walking in and taking
possession, if you think you can find it.”
“You bet your life I can find it,” Broome swore.
“First, though,” Westcott spoke again, “I want to go up to Phoenix. I
can get the noon train. And I’m going to fix our Mister Gard—his name
was Barker in those days—as he ought to be fixed. He won’t be out of
reach so that the authorities can’t find him, and he won’t get away this
time. Then I’ll go down to Tucson and file that claim right. Since he’s
got no legal status anyone can do that. Then I’ll come back here and
we’ll talk about the rest.”
“Look a’ here,” Broome interrupted, “You don’t do no filin’ till I’m
erlong, or you never gits to where the pay-streak is. You’ve gotter do
some work on it anyway, before you kin file legal.”
“Oh, shut up! Tell _me_ what the law is?” Westcott’s tone was brutal.
“You blamed fool,” he said, “Do you think I can’t get along without
you?”
“I ain’t sech a fool’s some,” was Broome’s retort, “I know you can’t, er
you wouldn’t be here. You want me to help find the spot, an’ you know
it.”
“There’s no use fighting over it,” said Westcott, more moderately; “I
was going to Tucson this afternoon; but I’ll go up to Phoenix first.
Mind you, now,” he added, “No funny business while I’m gone, or it’ll be
a bad day for you.”
Sandy Larch heard Westcott ride away. A moment later Broome’s step
sounded, returning to quarters.
The foreman waited some time before venturing out. When he did come into
the light his face wore a strange, half-dazed expression.
“Well!” he finally ejaculated, “I sure got my money’s worth that time.”
He walked over to one of the corrals and stood staring with unseeing
eyes at a bunch of yearlings huddled together in a corner.
“The dangnation fools!”
His exclamation seemed to afford him no relief; for presently he
repeated it.
“The dangnation fools!”
“I should think,” he added, “that that there Westcott person’d wanter
kick himself fer a sunbaked ’dobe ape, when he finds out what he’s bound
to find out, when he gets askin’ questions along o’ Phoenix.”
“The plumb fool,” he said, again. “To think he don’t know Jim Texas
confessed to killin’ Dan. The pizen-snake always said he would, an’ poor
old Dan was mighty foolhardy about it.
“But, God!”—his tone was full of pity—“To think that ‘Gard’ was that
poor devil of a Barker! How in tunk did he ever git where he is now?”
He picked up a bit of stone and flung it at the yearlings; not because
he bore them a grudge, but through sheer vexation of spirit.
“If he’d only a’ told me,” his thoughts went back to Gard. “If he’d only
a’ trusted me, ’stid o’ writin’ it out fer that hell-dog to find.” He
leaned upon the top-rail of the corral and sighed.
“Lord,” he said, “I’m pretty near all in. It’s too much fer Sandy!”
He could not understand Gard’s agitation over the loss of his packet,
if, as he now surmised, it merely contained the papers by which Westcott
had identified him. He pondered the matter for some time, and then light
dawned.
“Look a’ here!” he cried. “He’s in the same boat’s Westcott! He’s bin up
in the mountains ever since he made his getaway; that’s what! Fer some
reason or other he’s just come down, I wondered where in tunk he’d
drifted in from. An’ he ain’t found out yet about Jim Texas.”
Silence again, while Sandy meditated upon the situation. Then another
phase of it struck him.
“What’s he doin’ round here, anyway? Why ain’t he showin’ some
enterprise? What’s he hangin’ round Kate Hallard for?”
He could not tell. It was the one thing about Gard that to him seemed to
need explanation, and he would trust his friend without that. He was
dismissing the matter when a fresh thought came.
“If he _don’t_ know,” he muttered. “If he ain’t fixed his matters up,
then that sneakin’ law-buzzard’s right. He can’t file any claim. They
can _do_ him, there; even if they can’t jail ’im. By the powers! That’s
what they can do; an’ here I am, can’t leave the rancho!”
He groaned as this thought came home to him. He realized that he must
stay at the Palo Verde: Morgan Anderson had left him in charge.
“If ’twant fer leavin’ the little gal all alone—” He stood distractedly
considering.
“I don’t know enough about it anyway,” he at last exclaimed in despair.
“Ah! That’s where Kate Hallard comes in.”
The words were scarcely off his lips when looking up, he gave a low
whistle of surprise.
“Sure ’s beeswax,” he said, softly, unconsciously straightening up.
“Here’s exactly where Kate Hallard comes in.”
It was in fact Mrs. Hallard, riding in from the desert, her handsome
face more troubled in expression than Sandy had ever imagined it could
be.
“Hello, Kate,” he called, going to meet her. “What’s up? You don’t look
like you was out fer your health so to speak.”
“I ain’t.” Mrs. Hallard drew rein and looked down at the foreman.
“I ain’t out fer my health an’ I ain’t sure what I be out after,” she
said, without further preamble.
“Ash Westcott was in t’ the grille this morning tryin’ to make a deal
with me in a matter Mr. Gard’s been tendin’ to fer me. I wouldn’t swap
no lies with him and bimeby he gets mad an’ runs off a lot o’ talk I
don’t seem to get straight, but it sounded like he had Gard nailed, an’
was goin’ to do ’im dirt. Sure’s you live, Sandy, he’s meanin’ mischief.
I’m worried.”
She turned her horse toward the shade, Sandy walking beside her.
“I d’ know what to do,” she continued. “Mr. Gard, he’s gone off on
business o’ mine an’ I d’ know what Westcott _is_ cookin’ up against
him. I know he’s got a good-will to do him all the harm he can, though,
an’ I come over to talk to you about it.”
The cow-puncher stood regarding her, intently.
“Kate,” he said, “do you know who this Gabriel Gard really is?”
She looked at him blankly, her hard face set.
“You don’t need stand me off,” he cried. “If you’re his friend you know
I am, too. An’ he’s sure needin’ us both.”
He told her, with picturesque brevity, of Gard’s loss and Westcott’s
find, and of the talk which he had overheard between Westcott and
Broome.
“Them blamed sneakin’ coyotes is puttin’ up a cinch game on our man,” he
said, when he had finished, “an’ something’s gotter be done about it.
Where’s Gard gone? Is that his real name? Why ain’t he lookin’ after his
matters?”
Mrs. Hallard was thinking fast. Sandy’s story had been illuminating in
many ways.
“You’re dead right about one thing, Sandy,” she said. “He don’t know
about Jim Texas. That’s what’s bin eatin’ ’im.”
She suddenly realized the significance of Gard’s answer to her question
about Helen Anderson. He did not know that his innocence was practically
established.
“Well,” Sandy demanded, “what in thunder’s he doin’ round here then? Why
ain’t he tryin’ to fix things up fer himself? He’s got a’ plenty cash.
He ought to be gittin’ a good lawyer an’ seein’ if he can’t prove his
innercence. As ’tis now, he must think he’s likely to be jugged any
minit.”
Kate Hallard’s eyes flashed.
“He _does_ think so,” she cried. “He’s afraid of it, too. That I know.
An’ bein’ afraid, here’s what the man does.”
She leaned from the saddle and looked Sandy in the eyes.
“He somehow gits hold of a deed o’ Sam Hallard’s, to that Modesta range
Sam bought just ’fore he was killed. I give that deed to Arnold to
record, an’ Mr. Gard ain’t said nothin’ to me, but I figure he an’
Arnold was together when the cloudburst come that gits Arnold. He got
Frank’s coat, someway, an’ that deed was in the pocket. I d’ know where
he’s bin all this time, but I know one thing. He ain’t bin in no
wickedness.”
“Bet your life not,” Sandy assented. “Drive erlong, Kate.”
“Well: the deed’s bin lost these two years, an’ that devil, Westcott, he
found it out, an’ he done me out’n the prop’ty. Oh! He’s a side-winder,
fer sure!”
“That’s no lie,” was Sandy’s comment.
“It’s plain ’s day,” Mrs. Hallard went on. “You say he’s got a’ plenty
cash. _I_ know he could light out from here an’ go where he could live
like a lord. He’s got that much a’ plenty. But ’stid o’ that he comes
back here to this God-forsaken place; an’ what for? Why to help me. He
must a’ tracked over half the territory to find me an’ gimme back that
deed; an’ when he finds how things stands he settles down here to see I
git my rights. With this thing a’ hangin’ over him, so far’s he knows,
he’s gone back where he was known, to try ’n’ find a feller that
witnessed the transfer....”
Kate Hallard was all but sobbing with excitement and fear.
“Lord above us,—if they is any!” she gasped. “They ain’t never a man
like that. He’s pure angel!”
“Naw; he ain’t that, quite,” Sandy said, swallowing hard. “He’s man
enough to need that gold-mine in his business, one o’ these days, an’ he
stands to git robbed o’ that, I’m afraid.”
“How can they touch it? He’s an innercent man.”
“Yes; but he’s a criminal yet, in the eyes o’ the law, if he ain’t bin
pardoned an’ cleared. So his notice an’ filin’ ain’t legal.”
“Hell!” he exclaimed, and begged pardon next instant. “I wish I was in
Prescott,” he added.
“What would you do in Prescott?” Mrs. Hallard asked, eagerly.
“Do? I’d see the Gov’nor; git them papers made out, an’ scoot fer Tucson
an’ bring that there filin’ up to date.”
“Heavens an’ earth! Kin anybody do that fer ’im?”
“Sure.”
“Then look here, Sandy Larch: _I’m_ goin’ to Prescott.”
“You?”
“Yes, me; why not? You say anybody kin see the Gov’nor fer ’im. Well:
they ain’t many people knows Dave Marden much better ’n I did once. I
rather reckon he’d do ’s much fer me ’s fer you.”
There was a deeper hue in the speaker’s cheek than even excitement had
touched it to: but the foreman did not notice it.
“Bully fer you Kate!” he cried. “I’m inclined to think well o’ that
scheme o’ your’n.”
“I’ll have to hustle if I’m goin’ to git away to-day.” Mrs. Hallard was
practical and alert at once. “I guess I can skip back an’ git ready to
catch the night train. That’ll get me to Prescott in the morning.”
“Westcott, he’s just gone up on the noon run,” Sandy explained. “He’ll
be goin’ on to Phoenix I reckon.”
“Lord! I don’t wanter see him. I’m glad I couldn’t get that train if I
tried.” Mrs. Hallard was already riding away.
“So long, Sandy!” she cried, over her shoulder. “I’ll do my best.”
“Good luck to you!” Sandy waved his big cowboy hat.
“Kate’ll fetch it I reckon,” he muttered, turning toward the sheds. “But
now who’d a’ thunk we’d a’ fixed it up that a’way? Gosh-hemlock! What
funny things you see when you ain’t got a gun!”
Kate Hallard, meantime, was thinking of many things as she rode back to
Sylvania. The tide of old memories was at flood as she thought of the
man whom she was going to see in Gard’s behalf. She had spoken truly
when she told Sandy Larch she had once known the Governor well. How
well, was a matter that lay deep in her heart, a part of her hard,
sordid, unprotected girlhood, dead and buried now these thousand years,
it seemed to her. Something within her that she had thought was dead
with it shrank from the encounter of the morrow, but cowardice was not
one of the woman’s weaknesses. She set her shoulders squarely at the
memory of what Gard was braving for her.
“They’s one thing sure,” she said, half aloud. “Dave’ll do anything
_can_ be done. I reckon I can bank on that. He wa’ n’t a bad sort in the
old days.”
The road ran along the edge of an ancient lake, now a sea of sand, and
for many years, in the new order, the great rodeo ground of the region.
The entrance was yet marked by two big posts, one of which bore a great
yellow-and-black poster, such as the Salvation Army puts up through the
desert wastes, seeking to turn the plainsman’s thoughts to higher
things.
Beneath the poster, on the sand, a bull-snake and a burrowing owl
fraternized comfortably at the mouth of the hole that was their common
dwelling. Above it a carrion crow perched, cawing dismally at the scene.
The poster itself was sun-bleached and weather-worn, peppered with the
bullets of passing cowboys who had taken jocular shots at it, and beaten
by the blown desert-sand, but still legible. Kate Hallard had seen many
of its kind; had passed this very one on her way out that morning. She
glanced at it now.
“_FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY-BEGOTTEN SON, THAT
WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH ON HIM SHOULD NOT PERISH—_” The rest was
obliterated.
In her softened mood the words held her attention as they had never
before done. She checked her horse to read them again.
“I d’ know much about it,” she murmured. “The desert’s always been a
mighty handy place fer perishin’; if they _was_ a God, now, an’ He was
int’rested enough to give us a few more folks like this here Gabriel
Gard, I guess mebby believin’ ’d come handier, too.”
She rode on again, still thinking of Gard.
“We’ve got to help him out o’ this.” A dull flush crept up to her hair
and her black eyes suddenly filled with unfamiliar tears.
“Go to Dave Marden fer him—” she cried, “Lord! I’d go to the Old Nick
himself to help him, an’ that’s the truth!”